The Trouble With Love(53)

This wasn’t that night.

Emma smiled at a concerned Grace. “I’m okay,” she whispered. “Just…just a few bad memories.”

And then, because she had to, she turned her head until she found Cassidy. Found him watching her, just as he had been all those years ago.

And from the bleak expression on his face, she hadn’t been alone in her miserable walk down memory lane.

He’d been right there with her.





Chapter 19


Emma made it down the aisle at Julie’s wedding without looking at Cassidy even once. She kept her eyes on the pastor, a smile firmly in place, and concentrated on not slipping in her high heels.

The night before, she’d slipped up. At the rehearsal dinner, she let herself become self-absorbed, let the moment be about her.

It was a mistake that she wasn’t going to repeat on Julie’s wedding day.

Today she would be fully present as a bridesmaid.

As it turned out, she didn’t have to try that hard.

Because there was something stronger than memories: friendship.

Her friend was getting married.

No, friends, because Mitchell had become fiercely dear to Emma as well—her fellow introvert in a group full of chatty yappers.

And when Julie started down the aisle on her uncle’s arm, wearing her gorgeous A-line dress, adorned only with a satin sash crisscrossing Julie’s tiny waist, Emma felt it. That knot in her throat and a prick behind the eyes.

A quick glance at the dazed, smitten expression on Mitchell’s face when he saw Julie pushed Emma over the edge. She wasn’t much of a crier, generally speaking, but she put a hand over her mouth anyway lest a hiccupping sob of happiness sputter out.

Grace was standing in front of her and offered a tissue over her shoulder, which Emma happily accepted.

“God, I hate weddings,” Riley whispered from behind her, her voice also watery.

“Get it together. Julie will kill us if her entire bridal party is up here with mascara running down our faces,” Emma whispered, dabbing the corner of her eye.

“Good,” Riley hissed back. “Then I won’t feel as bad for wanting to kill her for making me wear beige.”

Julie had selected champagne-colored cocktail dresses for the bridesmaids, which Grace and Emma had deemed classy and lovely, but which Riley insisted washed her out. Julie had insisted that that had been, in fact, the point.

But Emma needn’t have worried about Julie catching sight of their happy, weepy faces.

Julie had eyes for only one person.

And he for her.

You could actually see the love between them, and Emma had to tap Grace for another tissue.

Watching Mitchell and Julie exchange their vows was, without a doubt, one of the high points in Emma’s life. And no moment was quite as beautiful as when Mitchell mouthed I love you to his bride while slipping the wedding band on her finger.

And when finally, finally, Mitchell and Julie shared their first (long) kiss as husband and wife, Emma let herself glance at Cassidy, just briefly, just wanting to share her happiness with someone…no, to share it with him.

And he was looking right back, a bittersweet smile on his face as he winked at her.

Emma winked back, and for just a second, just one second, they weren’t enemies, weren’t two people who’d ravaged each other’s hearts.

They were simply two people whose lives were inexplicably intertwined with each other’s in about a dozen different ways.

And in that moment, Emma was happy.

Then Mitchell and Julie were grinning, heading back up the aisle amid clapping and cheering, and the bridal party followed, filing out two by two. Emma wasn’t sure what happened, but instead of walking out on the arm of Mitchell’s childhood friend, she was surprised when it was Cassidy who offered his arm, looking heart-stoppingly handsome in his tux as he gave her a rare grin.

Caught up in the pure happiness of the day, Emma grinned back, and they walked out together, each only slightly aware that if circumstances would have been different, they would have been taking this very walk seven years ago, and not as bridesmaid and groomsman, but as something infinitely more dear.

When they were out of the room where the ceremony had taken place, Emma released his arm and started to follow the rest of the bridesmaids to the bridal dressing room to tackle the bustle of Julie’s gown so Julie could move more easily and, quote, dance her matrimonial ass off.

But before Emma could pull away, Cassidy caught her hand, and she paused, watching his thumb as it brushed over her knuckles before lifting her eyes to his.

He smiled then, and before she could register that he’d moved, he leaned in, pulling her closer before planting a soft, sweet kiss on her cheek.

Then he was gone, his stride as confident and cocky as ever as he shouted something to Sam before clamping Jake on the shoulder as they laughed at something she couldn’t hear.

“That was interesting.”

Emma glanced to her right to see Grace literally with her tongue in her cheek, having seen the whole interaction. Then Riley was on her left side, smirking even as she swiped on lip gloss as the three of them watched their three gorgeous men.

No, not their men.

Cassidy wasn’t hers.

But for a second there…it had sure felt like it.





Chapter 20